FAITH AND ECONOMICSby
James Reed
Dr. Geoffrey Dobbs in his address to the Melbourne Centenary
Douglas Dinner in 1979 ("The Douglas Legacy," New Times, November
1979) makes the fundamentally important point that C.H. Douglas, unlike most of
the economists of his day and today, adopted a strict scientific approach to the
study of human economic systems and finance. Social Credit, above all else was
an attempt to give a realistic understanding of man based upon assumptions open
to empirical observation and falsification.Orthodox
economics, taught in our universities, is based upon what Dr. Dobbs rather generously
described as "wild and woolly abstractions". It has as its central entity
a raceless, placeless, cultureless entity called "rational economic man"
who is literally infinitely greedy and who attempts to maximise, with mathematical
precision, an abstract entity called marginal utility. On this basis the whole
of so-called microeconomic theory, such as the theory of supply and demand curves,
is constructed. It is all smoke and mirrors, and is known to be so, as the advanced
economic journals contain refutations of almost everything taught to undergraduate
economics students. And yet the system continues as it legitimates as an ideology,
the greed of corporate capitalism. If there is a "funny money" approach,
it is from the side of the orthodox economics of finance, not from social crediters. Douglas
attempted, quite successfully, to verify the claims of social credit through a
confrontation with reality, and he did not twist facts to fit theory - or simply
ignore facts as orthodox economists do. All of the major policies of social credit
- the National Dividend, the Mining Scheme for Scotland, and so on - met with
concerted opposition from the establishment elites. Would a truly "funny
Money" scheme which allegedly had such manifestly absurd defects have merited
such intense opposition? Douglas discovered that through meeting the "top
people," it was the "will-to-power" of the elites, rather than
any technical defect in social credit, which had led to the blocking of social
credit ideas. Where Douglas' early work had
primarily dealt with the exposition of social credit, its philosophy, policy and
mechanics, his works from the Second World War onwards attempted to expose those
who had made and profited from this war and what their underlying philosophy was.
Programme for the Third World War, written during the Second World War, predicted
another round of slaughter unless the core economic causes of war are dealt with.
This exploration of "real politics" led him to a deeper exploration
of questions that he was aware of in earlier works, but had not, as a matter of
priority explored in the necessary depth: the Old Testament and morality, the
foundations of Christianity and the Trinitarian nature of God, democracy and realistic
constitutionalism and of course, the Jewish question. Dealing scientifically,
rather than politically with the Jewish question, undeservedly earned Douglas
a tag of "anti-Semitism". However at no time did Douglas in his works
set out to vilify anybody, and people, race or religion. He always kept fairly
and squarely to the facts as he observed them. A scientist Douglas was, but beyond
that, he was fundamentally a gentleman, a quality which unfortunately seems to
have been lost from manhood in the present generation of decadent materialism. The
foundation of genuine science, the urge to understand the universe and religion,
was the same for Douglas. In The Policy of a Philosophy Douglas insisted that
religions were intimately connected with reality: "In the sense that I
am going to use it, and I think I will be using it correctly, the word religion
has to do with a conception of reality. In so far as it means to bind back, to
bring into close relation again, and in that sense I am going to use it, religion
is any sort of doctrine, which is based upon an attempt to relate action to some
conception of reality." Religions are
metaphysical worldviews or ways of life. Policies and human action are based upon
such philosophies or conceptions of reality. Faith - the substance of things hoped
for, the evidence of things not seen - is embodied in policy and the testing of
the validity of the religion is just in science, by observing the consequences.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. For
Douglas, unlike today's intellectual crop of trendy relativists and postmodernists
(all truth is relative, there are no absolutes), there is a reality which is knowable
objectively and exists outside of individual and social consciousness. In The
Pursuit of Truth Douglas said: "Now it is my belief
that there is running
through the nature of the Universe something that we call a "canon".
It is the thing, which is referred to in the Gospel of St. John as the "logos,"
the "word"
The engineer and the artist refer to it when they say
they have got something "right". Other people mean the same thing when
they talk about absolute truth, or reality." A
canon is an objective and discoverable reality: "By their fruits ye shall
know them." This inductive method of the scientist is the correct method
of judging "religions" - belief systems. The destructive belief systems
that enslave us today - multiculturalism, consumerism, materialism, globalism,
feminism ad nauseum - are best attacked through exposing their fruits and foul
fruits they are indeed. It is not "dwelling on the negative" to expose
the foibles and follies of our enemies, for this is part of the scientific process
of discovering what is real and true. Through our articles we hope to continue
the fine intellectual tradition of C.H. Douglas and Eric D. Butler of discovery
of the truth about reality. We try to expose the absurdities of our enemy's ideologies.
We
live in a time of dark degeneracy where the powers of love and logic seem to be
buried under the weight of a ton of "big mac's". But what the caterpillar
calls the end of the world, the butterfly calls the beginning! |
GOD, DESIGN AND SCIENCE
by James ReedFor some months
The Australian has been permitting something of a debate on the question of intelligent
design. The articles are largely favoured towards naturalistic evolutionary science
- that there is no divine creator and that the laws of life are completely explicable
in mechanical-scientific terms. The idea that there may be a divine creator who
created the universe has not been regarded as "scientific". That which
is "scientific", according to this debate, is that subject to experimental
tests and observation. Such a criterion of
science would finish off evolutionary theory and cosmology, for much of these
"sciences" rest on speculation and "just so stories". Science
in this sense is not equivalent to truth and rationality, but is only a limited
part of the rational. Proof: mathematics is not based on observation, but is surely
scientific, hence science is not equivalent to that based solely on observation.
In any case the theory of intelligent design is based on observations: it
gives an explanation of why there is a world. If it can be shown that a mechanistic
purposeless account of the world fails - which is the research programme of intelligent
design - then the hypothesis of intelligent design is supported, at least indirectly. Philosophers
and theologians have argued that where science ends, philosophy and theology begin,
so why shouldn't students be able to go where humanity's greatest thinkers have
gone? What is wrong with a bit of theology to stimulate the brain cells? The
opposition to intelligent design by so-called "scientists" comes not
from any rational argument based opposition to the theory but to an ideological
based resistance: they don't want their own religion of godless materialism challenged.
Most of these scientists are pretty narrow specialists who don't have a bone of
philosophy in their body. Giving students an
alternative would allow them to question received dogma and modern science, like
medieval religion, is an arational paradigm that only allows questioning within
carefully prescribed limits. |
WHY
IS DAVID IRVING IN JAIL?by Nigel Jackson
In Melbourne the news first broke on 18th November in MX: 'Holocaust
Claims: Irving in Austrian jail.' The opening paragraph read: 'Historian David
Irving has been arrested in Austria for speeches he made 16 years ago in which
he allegedly claimed the mass slaughter of Jews never happened.'
A misleading
statement! Irving may have argued that the mass gassings with zyklon-B at Auschwitz
and other so-called 'death camps' in the General Government sector of wartime
Poland had not occurred, but he has never said that no mass killings of Jews of
any kind occurred under the Nazi regime.
The story continued: 'If tried
and convicted, he could face up to 10 years in jail as denial of the Holocaust
is a criminal offence in Austria.' Later, some other newspapers were to suggest
it might be 20 years. Neither this report, nor
subsequent reports in Melbourne's three main newspapers, The Age, the Herald Sun
and The Australian, in any way intimated that imprisonment for any period of time,
let alone such huge periods, for expressing dissident views about historical events
is monstrously and fundamentally unjust.
Nor did they consider that, in
having passed such legislation, Austria had, in that context, perhaps become a
criminal state. Nor did they indicate that the phrase 'Holocaust denial' is a
corruptly ambiguous term, failing to distinguish between partial rejection of
the currently received story of the Holocaust and full rejection (which, of course,
would be absurd). (I say 'corruptly', because I believe it is deliberately and
repeatedly used in order to confuse a gullible public.)
These newspapers
and other similar media outlets need to consider the possibility that, in regularly
reporting such news stories in such prejudicial language, uncritically and in
a deadpan tone, they are becoming accessories to hideous injustice, to something
that can veritably be named as a crime against humanity. MX went on
to advise its readers that 'Irving has been banned from Austria and Germany because
of his views', again failing to comment on the manifest injustice of such a disproportionate
punishment, which includes restriction of freedom to research.
The newspaper
cannot claim (as it might) that it had no obligation to comment critically in
a mere news report, for in the last paragraph of the story it went on to make
just such a comment: 'His reputation was forever tainted when he denied the existence
of Nazi gas chambers and tried to distance Adolf Hitler from any involvement in
the Holocaust.' That use of the word 'forever' amounts to a journalistic claim
analogous to the Stuart assertion about the divine right of kings. And any such
distancing related specifically to the claims about mass gassings with zyklon-B,
not to other killings of Jews and others.
So even from that one little
news story it is possible to observe that the major media are, for whatever reasons,
the allies of Irving's opponents and are his enemies. The inaccuracies and ambiguous
language constantly go one way. Analysis of the reports next day (19th November)
in the Herald Sun and The Age support this observation. Indeed,
The Age headline appeared to have a touch of gloating humour in it: 'Holocaust
denier under lock and key in Austria'. And the 'forever tainted' of MX
had become 'forever damned'. Shades of the Inquisition!
The Age
made much of Justice Gray's UK High Court decision against Irving in his defamation
case against Deborah Lipstadt. The major media, ever since that decision, have
reported on Irving as though it had conclusively 'disgraced' him (another word
used by The Age). I must confess that I have not yet read the full judgement,
let alone studied it, but I have doubts about it for two reasons. Firstly, a similar
UK High Court decision against Count Nikolai Tolstoy and in favour of Lord Aldington,
has been heavily criticized (notably in Ian Mitchell's The Cost of a
Reputation, Canongate, UK, 1998). It appears that nefarious manipulation by
persons associated with the current Establishment in the UK may have led to a
miscarriage of justice. It is not impossible that Irving suffered in a similar
manner.
Secondly, from the time Justice Gray's decision was announced,
some five years ago, the mass media in Melbourne (at any rate) do not appear to
have published any detailed analysis of that judgement, even of the kind that
could fairly be expected in quality newspapers as opposed to academic law journals.
The public has been asked to swallow it whole.
Judgements of such prestigious
courts do deserve respect but have no claim to be absolute. Only God's justice
is such.
Soon Irving's situation in Austria took on a different hue. MX
announced on 25th November that Irving had done a 'backflip' on the 'Nazi gas
chambers'. It seems that he now admits that 'gas chambers did exist in Adolf Hitler's
Germany', specifically at Auschwitz, as a result of having studied 'new research
on the Third Reich'. Details of this research have not yet been provided. This
alleged change of view of Irving was extensively reported the next day (26th November)
by The Australian and the Herald Sun. Irving's opponents were sceptical.
'It's an admission designed to extricate himself from imprisonment and in no way
truly reflects his views', said Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal
Centre in Los Angeles, according to The Australian.
The Herald
Sun reported that Irving wanted bail to get documents from his archives in
Britain to help him show that his Austrian prosecutors had taken the alleged offending
statements made 16 years ago 'out of context'. He has been denied bail, because
his prosecutors fear he would abscond. On 3rd December The Age reported
that, amusingly enough, Irving had found two of his own books in the 6400-volume
library of Graz Prison, where he is being held. The head of the prison, Josef
Adam, was quoted as saying: 'Now we will dispose of the books.' It seems that
The Age has no objection to such an anti-cultural act of destruction or
to the absence of a sense of humour and sense of sportsmanship displayed by Mr
Adam.
Irving will spend Christmas in jail and his case will be heard early
in 2006. I sent letters of protest about Irving's treatment to The Age,
the Herald Sun and The Australian. No such letters, by me or other
writers, have appeared in those newspapers as I write (4th December), although
The Australian published a letter by me on 21st November which suggested
that that paper should report and condemn the mistreatment of Ernst Zundel, Germar
Rudolf and other revisionist historians. My letter ended: 'And can we expect
from you a spirited defence of David Irving's right to speak freely in Austria
and other nations? If not, why not?' To date my questions have gone unanswered.
What is the meaning of this latest episode in the saga of Irving's life?
Unless evidence is brought up to disprove it, I think we can assume that Irving's
headstrong nature misled him into foolishly risking a brief journey into Austria,
though he knew he might be arrested. And we are entitled to share Mr Zuroff's
scepticism about his conversion.
However, the episode also has meaning
in a wider context.
Much of that context is outlined in an important statement,
'The UN Decides on a Universal Ban on Revisionism' published on 17th November
by Professor Robert Faurisson of France. Here are some of its key passages.
'On
1st November, unanimously and without a vote, the representatives of the 191 nations
making up the UN adopted - or let be adopted - an Israeli-drafted resolution proclaiming
27th January "International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the
Holocaust". Moreover, the resolution "Rejects any denial of the Holocaust as an
historical event, either in full or part."
'The draft was approved by
the United States in utter disregard of the guarantees of freedom of opinion provided
by the first amendment to its constitution
'All those present approved, or let
pass with soft verbal restrictions, a resolution originating from the Jews that
goes so far as to condemn the right of free research on a historical subject
'The resolution will serve morally to justify and facilitate extradition
measures taken against revisionists. Precedents are not lacking, what with (1)
the European arrest warrant; (2) the virtual handing over of revisionist Rene-Louis
Berclaz by Serbia to Switzerland; (3) the handing over of revisionist Ernst Zundel
by the US to Canada, then by Canada to Germany; (4) the handing over of Belgian
revisionist Siegfried Verbeke by the Netherlands to Germany; (5) the handing over
of revisionist Germar Rudolf to Germany by the US
'There is at present
a bill in committee at the Knesset that will authorize Israel to request foreign
governments to hand over any revisionist in order to bring him before a court,
sitting in Jerusalem, that will apply the 1986 Jewish anti-revisionist law against
him.'
We Australians should link these matters to the current campaign
in our nation, aided and abetted especially by The Australian, to have
two men in their eighties, Charles Zentai and Lajos Polgar, deported to Hungary
to face what could only be political show trials on charges of 'Nazi war crimes'.
Acquiescence in such an inhumane campaign pollutes the soul of the nation.
There is, it seems clear, enough evidence available to show that something
of a world tyranny, essentially Jewish in nature, is now in open operation, in
defiance of traditional ideals based upon Christianity and the British law that
grew from it.
National governments in Western nations, including our own,
and the major media, are lackeys of that tyranny.
I
see two great communities that may be able to arrest and then overturn this tyranny:
Christianity and Islam. Is it not then more than a coincidence that enormous efforts
are being made to bring these communities into conflict with each other at this
critical time?
Nigel Jackson, author of The Case for David Irving
(Veritas, 1994), is a Melbourne poet, man of letters and schoolteacher. |